Problem solving

After our short snow week, this past week we were able to get back into our normal routine. However, the boy who predicted three feet of snow has since been praying for more snow.

I have concluded that at least 25% of a teacher's job is problem solving.

I can't find my February calendar.
My magnet isn't on the board.
I can't find my packet.
I can't get my clementine peeled.
How long should I put this in the microwave?
I don't have a spoon in my lunch.
I accidentally put glue on the pattern.
I lost my sticker chart.
I don't know where my coat is.  

I would love to say that I always respond patiently and helpfully. However, there are times when a sigh escapes my mouth, and times when I walk away without immediately answering, and times when I stare blankly, thinking, "What would you like me to do about that?"

I only have one sandwich in my lunch.

One day this week, one of the girls asked me if she could tell the class something. I agreed, and she proceeded to ask the class how many of them would like to take a ride in an airplane with her dad. I told her that she better talk to her dad about that before she starts making plans. The next day, she says to the class, "My dad says he can't take you for a ride in the airplane. He sends his apologies."

The class was doing a good job yesterday, so I said, "I'll give you some marbles" (in the marble jar).

Student: Seven!
Me: No, I said some.
Student: My sister says some means seven. 

Report card

Last Tuesday morning, one boy entered the classroom excitedly chatting about the three feet of snow we'd be getting over the weekend. Some of the other students disagreed with him about the amount, to which he replied, "Yes we are! Two feet of snow on Friday and one foot on Saturday."
I said, "It's too early! They don't know yet!"
His reply made me laugh. "It's better to hope than to doubt!"
He sure told me... although we were hoping for different things. But I'm happy for him that he at least got two feet of snow!

I did something risky on Friday. Since I handed out their report cards, I decided it was only fair for them to give me a report card too, so I could see how I'm doing. It seems like I have some things to work on. Of course there are some things they wish they could change about third grade that I have no power to change (or that I will choose not to):

Art every day and no science
No homework
More gym
That I could be taller 

But I will have to seek some clarification for some of the suggestions.

How could I be a better teacher?

By being a little bit more senceable. (Did she mean sensitive? Or am I really not very sensible in her eyes?)
Less talking (Haha! I wish!)

And then there were sweet responses such as this one:

You are a good teacher. We will miss you. I love you, Miss Weaver. (I guess she's already thinking about the end of the year.)

40 hours of downtime

We are officially half way through the school year, which is always unbelievable to me. I'm also having a hard time remembering that we are now in the year 2016. The moment one boy walked into the classroom on the first day back from Christmas break, he said, "You have January 4, 2015 on the board." This happened more than once. And just yesterday, one of the boys brought me his birthday certificate where I had also written 2015. Luckily, it's pretty easy to change a 5 to a 6. And I have people keeping me on track.

I'm absolutely loving this year. It's so exciting to see how much the students are learning and progressing. We still have plenty to learn in the coming half of a year. Of course, things like multiplication and division and capital cursive letters. But there are a few other things to work on as well.

I'm still reminding the students that only water is acceptable at their desks throughout the day... not tea, not soda, not a huge bottle of Gatorade. Water with lemon is permissible, but snacking on your lemons from your water bottle is not.

Some of them also need continual reminders to not call out in class, especially during a test. Yesterday during the spelling test, one girl asked if the word was "disobey" or "disobeyed." I answered, and she went on to spell "disobeyed," exclaiming as she did, "Hey! The word 'eye' is in it!... Oops."

And of course, telling time and counting hours is always hard. The school newspaper staff did a survey this week, asking the students how much time they spent daily on various activities. One girl marked that she had 40 hours of downtime each day. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: You can't have 40 hours a day-
Girl, interrupting: Yes, I do! I have lots of free time.
Me (trying so hard to hold in my laughter): No, you can't! There are only 24 hours in a day!
Girl: But I do! I have so much time.
Me (with a hint of frustration and failing to hold in the laughter): You don't understand. From the time you get up in the morning until the next morning is only 24 hours! You can't have 40 hours of anything in one day. 

I didn't even go into how much time she spends sleeping and eating and at school. She grudgingly took the paper and changed her answer. I walked away, so as not to hover and create more stress, but I could tell from the way she was watching me that it was still probably not accurate. Sure enough... now she only has 24 hours of free time a day.

One battle at a time, I'm excited to see what the second half of the year holds!

My kids

I'm always calling my students "my kids." This could be confusing for people who don't know this. Like when I'm wrapping 19 Christmas gifts for "my kids." So yes, I do have 19 kids, for those of you who didn't know. (So much thanks to you parents who entrust them to me for seven hours every day. It is an honor as well as very humbling.) It seems to strike me every year around Christmastime that they really, really are now my kids. I know them. We've worked so hard. We've laughed together. Maybe we've even shed a few tears together. I love them so much. They are mine.

We had a good, short week before Christmas. They were able to fill their marble jar, and the reward they chose was to watch a movie and have a snack. They asked if they could take off their shoes to watch the movie, and when I agreed, I couldn't believe how excited they were! It's the little things... I overheard one girl exclaim, "This is the best day of my life!"

Yesterday I had them act out a little Christmas play. At one point it says, Angel hugs Candy Cane. One of the boys who was off stage was reading ahead, and whispered to the girl playing Angel, "Don't do it!" When she got to that part, she got an appalled look on her face and said, "I'm not going to hug him!" (Poor Candy Cane.)

I gave them each a simple art kit as a Christmas gift. I received more exuberant hugs in one minute than I did the rest of the year combined. One sensitive girl concernedly asked, "How did you pay for all of them?" I assured her they were on sale, and I had a coupon! (I learned a few things from my mom.)

On a Christmas writing prompt I gave them this week, one girl wrote about how she and her family are going on a trip. She told me to write and call, and if I want to know her dad's cell number, he'll lend it to me. (She'll only be missing two days of school.) I'm sure I will miss her, as well as the rest of the class over Christmas break, but I think I'll be able to survive without making any phone calls.

Merry Christmas!

BFFs, yogurt discussions, and candy bar prayers

The main thing I love about my job is, of course, the kids. This is why I write. You can't make this stuff up. 

(I know some of you saw my Facebook post about this, so sorry for the repetitiveness.) The class was completing a Bible worksheet about David and Jonathan, and I decided we should answer some of the questions together. One of the questions was, "What did David and Jonathan promise each other?" The answer I wrote on the board for them to copy was, "They and their descendants would always be friends." Later, when I was grading the papers, I read this one boy's answer and burst out laughing: "BFF and descendants BFF." I would expect something like that from some of the girls, but because it was a boy made it that much funnier to me. 

One day during break time I overheard one of the boys saying, "I wonder why I'm always surrounded by girls." 

I was telling my class about a little boy I know who needed brain surgery. One girl raised her hand and asked, "Was it Ben Carson who did his surgery?" 

For language class, we finished a chapter on action verbs, and the students have been completing different activities to reinforce their knowledge. At least, that was my plan. As one of the girls was leading the class in Simon Says, I reminded her to use action verbs. She looked at me and asked, "What are verbs?" 

In science class, we've been discussing characteristics of living things and the difference between living and nonliving things. Today I overheard this conversation at lunch:

"Yogurt is a living thing!"
"No, it's not! Why isn't it moving?"
"Wouldn't it be funny if it was moving around in the trash can?"
"No, it's alive inside the yogurt."
"That's weird."
"Who told you that?"
"You should ask Miss Weaver." 

(I was not about to jump in and offer my limited knowledge about live cultures.)

"YouTube would tell you!"
...
"Miss Weaver?" 

But by far my favorite part of the week was listening to my students pray. This year our school collected candy bars to give to inmates in a local prison for a Christmas project.

We spent some time praying this week during the times that the chaplain would be handing out the candy bars. These were some of the prayers that made me get all teary eyed: 

"Let them know that someone loves them, even if they've been bad. None of us are perfect."
"Help them to know You love them no matter if they're good or bad."
"Tell them that we love them." 

Today when they heard that the candy bars were successfully handed out and that the men were amazed that someone cared enough to buy them something, the students excitedly exclaimed, "Our prayers worked!" 

Best job ever

Teaching is hard work. Some days it's hard to feel successful, and it's hard to know what you really accomplished. But then there are days when I sit there and look at all my students engaged and working hard, and when I listen to the student whose reading has improved so much since August. And my heart is filled with joy because I have the privilege of being part of all of it. And then there are those extra special perks. Days like yesterday, when a student delivers warm chocolate chip cookies, baked fresh that morning by her mother. And I think, This is the best job ever! 

I just finished reading Ramona the Pest to my class. When we got to the part where Ramona was banned from the Kindergarten until she could stop pulling Susan's "boing, boing" curls, one of my girls asked me, "Would you ever do that to us?" I just laughed and said, "No!" I didn't explain to her that I couldn't, if I wanted to. :)

In math one day, we were practicing using timelines, so we made a timeline with events from my life. I asked them how many years they think we should put on the timeline. One of them thought 100 years.

They've also been practicing writing numbers using words, which means I see some interesting spelling, such as "9inedy" and "ate hundred" and "aty."

One morning this week, I looked across the classroom and saw a bunch of girls gathered around one of the boys. (This is not typical behavior for third graders.) Then I realized they were all looking at a picture of his brand new baby brother. And of course then I had to join them! (When I say I love newborns, they look at me strangely, as if they can't imagine me with any other people besides third graders.)

I entered the bathroom a couple of days ago, and overheard two girls who were in the stalls.
"I started at the bottom and went to the top."
I assumed I missed the beginning of the conversation.
Long pause.
Same girl: "I got 100."
...
Girl number 2: "Oh! You're counting them! ...1,2,3,4,5..."
And I realized (as I was leaving the bathroom and they continued counting), that they were counting the tiles on the bathroom floor. Maybe I should have checked in with their teacher to see how long they were missing from class. :)

Best job ever.

Incredible kids

My students find ways all the time to brighten my days. I received a hand-written letter, a whoopie pie, and pictures all in one day!

Last week we had three half days so that we could have parent-teacher conferences in the afternoons. On Wednesday, I reminded the students that Thursday would be a full day. And they cheered. They cheered about having a full day of school. How blessed am I to be teaching these incredible kids? 

As incredible as they are, I don't think I'm quite ready to travel across the Atlantic with all of them. We've been learning about Ancient Rome in social studies, and I mentioned that someday I would love to go to Rome and see the Colosseum. They wanted to go too, so naturally they concluded that we should take a class field trip to Italy. A few days later, we learned about Pompeii, and when someone said that they would like to visit it, I said, "Sure, we'll just go there after our field trip to the Colosseum." I have to remember that not all third graders pick up on sarcasm, because some of them were so confused. "Wait, what? Our field trip to the Colosseum?" 

I explained to one of the students that when there is a problem like 5 + m = 12, you have to find the missing number that m stands for. "Does m stand for mystery?" she wondered. That would make a lot of sense. 

On a science worksheet, one of the questions was, "Are you warm-blooded or cold-blooded? How do you know?" From past experience, I told the students they couldn't say something like, "Because the book says so," or "My teacher told me." But one student wrote, "I know because I am smart."

At break time one day, I heard a group of boys chanting, "Do it! Do it! Do it!" Of course anytime there is a group of boys chanting "Do it!" there are automatically red flags. So I stared at them, waiting to see what it was, but then they started whispering, "The teacher's looking." You better believe it. So it is still a mystery. Probably for the best.